St Kilda fans wanted hope heading into 2025, instead they got donuts

Ross Lyon could be a glass half-full or half-empty man after his Saints were smashed by the Power. St Kilda fans won’t want to hear the narrative of the latter.

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There are many ways to view practice match form, it depends if you’re a half-glass full or empty man.

Ross Lyon will have to be at his spinning best to turn what St Kilda served up in their final hit-out before the season starts into anything vaguely positive.

The Saints were awful against Port Adelaide on a day which was set up to be a celebration for their faithful.

Jack Steele leads his dejected Saints off the ground. Picture: Getty Images

On a beautiful sunny Melbourne afternoon with several thousand St Kilda fans creating a festive atmosphere inside Moorabbin, the stage was set for some hope to be delivered about what lay ahead in 2025.

Instead they got donuts.

At half-time the Saints had managed just one goal, they trailed by 41 points and young gun Mitch Owens was off with a shoulder injury that will rule him out of the season opener against Adelaide.

Given full-forward Max King is in serious doubt after having knee surgery last week, Lyon is going to be at his inventive best to find some goal kickers.

Ruckman Rowan Marshall would help but he’s been unsighted all summer as has speedster Jack Sinclair so even if they make it to Round 1 their preparation has been ordinary.

If it’s a half-full Lyon then he could look at former Western Bulldog Jack Macrae who did what he’s been doing for a decade, knocked up getting touches through the midfield with a game-high 32 possessions.

Jack Macrae was a shining light. Picture: Michael Klein

Draftee Hugh Boxshall, who the Saints took at No.45 in November, put his hand up with two goals while Irishman Liam O’Connell showed he is more than capable of filling a spot in defence.

In his second season, O’Connell was one of the few Saints who played with some purpose, particularly in the first half, and has probably done enough to earn a debut in Round 1.

And Lyon also had nine players with 25 games or less, which also included six who were yet to debut, up against a very experienced and seasoned Port Adelaide outfit.

If it’s the half-empty Lyon then he would be finding all sorts of stats which would show him how little pressure his team put on Port who seemed to waltz around Moorabbin untouched for much of the afternoon – 342 uncontested possessions to 176 tells that story.

The Power also had little difficulty breaking tackles so the lack of urgency and effort would have to be of concern to the Saints coach.

The Saints were completely outplayed. Picture: Getty Images

His assistant, former Geelong premiership hero Corey Enright, was given the job of explaining the performance afterwards and he said the focus of the review would be the lacklustre opening quarter.

“The start is where we need to focus on,” Enright said. “They jumped out of the blocks and we were pretty slow to get our game going.

“I thought from quarter-time onwards we pegged the game back a little bit and chipped away … we know that is who we are at the moment as we have got a lot of senior players out at the moment.

“There are a lot of great learnings in that for us, yeah we wanted it to be better today particularly early we wanted it to be better.

“We will probably review the first 30-40 minutes and see what we could do better.”

Unfortunately for Saints fans, there seems to be an awful lot.